How to Use Fasted Cardio to Burn Fat Fast

October 31, 2014

Burning fat is a top priority for most of the people hitting the gym, even surpassing building lean muscle mass. It seems with all of the sweet treats and amazing food in developed countries it’s getting harder and harder to stay lean and chiseled.

There are many fat burning strategies, but possibly none more powerful than fasted cardio to achieve a very lean physique and six-pack abs.

Bodybuilders and fitness models practice fasted cardio as a primary weapon to maintain less than 10% body fat.

The main concept behind fasted cardio is that you are burning calories on an empty stomach, which is helping you burn pure fat.

Fasted cardio can be a very powerful form of cardio for body composition changes, but there are certainly a few rules of thumb that you have to follow if you want to maximize fat burning and ensure you don’t lose any lean muscle mass.

When your body is fed and doesn’t need anything, it has no reason to burn excess fat cells for energy. In order to trick our body into a major fat burning mode, we train when insulin levels are extremely low.

The best time to perform fasted cardio is first thing in the morning when you get up because you are obviously in a fasted state from the night before. If you want to take your fat burning to the next level, make sure you don’t eat within 14-16 hours of your fasted cardio session.

When it comes to the most powerful form of body composition training, high-intensity interval training in a fasted state takes the cake. This is the cardio of choice for fitness models and elite athletes and can no doubt help just about any guy quickly burn body fat.

How Do You Perform HIIT?

High-intensity interval training simply means that you are working your body’s fast twitch muscle fibers, which are used in maximum intensity and explosion exercises such as sprinting, jumping, and weight lifting.

The most effective form of high-intensity interval training for fat burning seems to be running sprint intervals. This means that you are sprinting at 100% maximum intensity for a set amount of time, followed by a short rest period. You will continue repeating this for the duration of the workout.

Remember: just because you can run for long distances does not mean that you will have great endurance with high-intensity interval training.

Running, biking, and swimming for long periods of time at moderate intensity is a form of aerobic cardio working the body’s slow twitch muscle fibers.

Remember that the whole reason that HIIT is so effective is that it is working your body’s fast twitch muscle fibers, which have tons of metabolism and hormonal benefits.

Here is how an intermediate HIIT workout would look running sprint intervals. Note that this workout does not take very long to complete and is way more effective at burning fat than typical cardio, which is solely aerobic training.

Aerobic training does not burn as much fat even though you are exercising for longer because you do not stimulate any anabolic hormonal response from working the slow twitch muscle fibers, and there is also no “afterburn” effect where you have a high metabolism following exercise.

Leave a comment

Also in Blog

You’re at the store, perusing the health supplement aisle. You slowly make your way over to the vitamin section, and it hits you like a bolt of lighting – there are seemingly endless choices! But do multivitamins work? Multivitamins comprise the single most prolific niche of dietary supplements. It’s estimated that upwards of 50% of... View Article

Hydrogen is ubiquitous in nature, making up approximately 75% of all particle mass in the universe. Recent research has been investigating the potential health benefits of molecular hydrogen (H2) gas therapy, which is suggested to treat over 60 human diseases.1 Lately, though, the focus has shifted towards hydrogen water benefits. So, are the benefits of... View Article

If you have not heard of AstraGin yet, it’s time to become more aware of what this powerful ingredient does when put in your supplements. Many of you are spending your hard-earned dollars on different products designed to help you go that extra mile. It only makes sense then that you’d want to ensure that... View Article